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Keywords

Wed, 03/04/2009 - 20:02 | hdanzl

Keywords are words recognized by SQL to have a distinct meaning within the context in which they appear. Keywords are used in SQL statements to identify the statement itself, the SQL grammar that specifies processing actions and the SQL elements used by the statement.

The SQL language is case-insensitive. Therefore, keywords, identifiers and other names written in upper case, lower case or mixed case with the same spelling mean the same thing. Throughout this manual, keywords are written in upper case to distinguish keywords from identifiers.

Many SQL keywords are reserved words. Reserved words cannot be used as names for database objects such as tables, columns, views etc. unless the word is enclosed by double quotes. For example, "Date" is a valid column name, while Date would cause an exception.